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f'  ADDRESS  AT  MOONSHINE 
BY  BLISS  CARMAN 


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ADDRESS  AT  MOONSHINE 


ADDRESS 

TO  THE  GRADUATING  CLASS 

MCMXI'  OF  THE  UNITRINIAN 

SCHOOL  OF  PERSONAL 

HARMONIZING 

FOUNDED  BY  MARY  PERRY  KING 

AT  MOONSHINE,  TWILIGHT  PARK 

IN  THE  CATSKILLS 

By 
BLISS  CARMAN 


NEW  YORK 
Privately  Printed 

191 1 


C3 


COPYRIGHT  191  I   BY 
BLISS  CARMAN 


THE  TABARD  PRESS 


ADDRESS  AT  MOONSHINE 

CANNOT  EASILY  express 
the  satisfaction  I  have  in 
being  asked  to  address  the 
first  class  fiDrmally  graduating 
from  this  School  of  Personal 
Harmoni2;ing.  Its  establish" 
ment  and  prosperity  are  matters  of  far  greater  mo- 
ment  to  me  than  the  successful  issue  of  any  merely 
private  aims  and  ambitions.  Whatever  anyone 
may  hope  to  achieve  in  the  world  of  art  andletters, 
however  disinterested  and  devoted,  must  be  after 
all  only  a  partial  and  individual  success,  the  con- 
tribution of  a  single  mind,  of  a  single  pair  of  hands, 
to  the  great  cause  of  human  happiness.  Labor  as 
we  may  in  the  Hmitless  domain  of  art,  we  are  only 
humble  workmen  still,  restricted  to  the  narrow 
confines  of  our  individual  pow^er,  capable  of  add- 
ing  all  too  Httle  to  the  world's  splendid  overflow" 
ing  treasury,— our  vogue  destined  to  pass,  our 

a2  1 


235329 


novels,  our  operas,  our  poems,  our  paintings,  our 
statues  destined  to  be  forgotten.  But  here  in  the 
establishing  of  a  school  for  the  education  of  per^ 
sonality,  our  feet  are  on  the  foundations  of  the 
world,  partial  aims  are  merged  in  those  which  are 
universal,  and  we  become  co-workers  ^vith  the 
Lord  of  Life.  We  are  no  longer  merely  students 
acquiring  knowledge  for  our  own  gratification,  no 
longer  merely  artists  proud  in  the  perishable 
achievements  of  our  skill,  but  seers  and  prophets 
of  a  new  day,  taking  part  in  the  creation  of  that 
better  world  which  is  to  be. 

Do  you  think  my  words  too  high''flown?Then, 
pray,  to  what  greater  tasks  do  you  think  we  mor^ 
tals  can  give  ourselves  than  to  the  transcendent 
art  and  science  and  religion  of  human  culture? 
May  we  not  truly  call  education  the  most  divine 
of  all  the  arts,  at  once  the  most  primitive  and 
fundamental,  the  most  ancient,  modern  and  far' 
reaching.  To  create  new  forms  of  loveliness,  as 
the  artist  does,  for  the  enheartening  and  beauti' 
fying  of  daily  life,  is  indeed  a  calling  worthy  of  our 


best  endeavors;  and  happy  are  they  who  pursue 
it  in  any  direction.  But  to  create  and  illumine  new 
spirits,  to  set  new  and  larger  boundaries  for  the 
outlook  of  the  mind,  to  recreate  and  develop  jaded 
bodies,— to  fashion,  in  short,  new  personalities, 
—here  surely  is  a  labor  really  angelic,  never  to 
be  accompHshed  without  an  unselfishness,  an  in^ 
sight,  and  a  devotion,  that  may  truly  be  recognized 
as  divine. 

I  speak  thus  loftily  of  the  profession  of  teach' 
ing  because  I  believe  it  to  be  so  vital  in  our  time. 
We  live  in  a  day  of  great  spiritual  awakening, 
when  the  soul  of  man,  having  so  largely  mastered 
the  resources  of  material  existence,  is  turning 
everywhere  to  secure  the  finer  requisites  of  its 
being,— peace,  security,  joy.  Our  political  and  re^ 
Hgious  institutions  are  all  on  trial,  sumimoned  to 
the  bar  of  incorruptible  goodness,  in  the  supreme 
court  of  the  soul,  to  answer  for  their  deeds,— not 
whether  these  have  been  good,  but  whether  they 
have  been  the  best.  But  aU  our  economic  and  so^ 
ciologic  problems  come  back  at  last  to  the  man  and 


the  woman,  to  the  single  individual  person.  No 
machinery  of  government,  no  ingenuity  of  law, 
can  procure  for  us  the  justice  and  innocence  and 
gladness  which  our  spirits  with  their  incredible 
foresight  so  imperiously  demand.  There  can  be  no 
making  people  free,  nor  honest,  nor  happy,  in  the 
mass.  Only  through  education  can  we  reach  the 
goal;  there  is  no  other  adequate  panacea  for  mis^ 
ery;  no  other  assurance  of  adequate  happiness. 
Only  by  making  boys  and  girls,  men  and  women, 
more  kindly,  more  sincere  and  brave,  more  cour- 
teous,  honest,  and  industrious,  can  we  make  this 
generous  and  impartial  earth  more  hospitable  for 
human  habitation,  and  life  itself  as  glorious  and 
fully  significant  as  we  instinctively  believe  it  des^ 
tined  to  become.  Our  days  are  stirring  with  the  de^ 
voted  deeds  of  men  and  women  in  every  activity 
tending  toward  human  amelioration  and  reform. 
In  no  direction  can  fine  effort  be  more  helpful,  in 
no  field  can  it  bear  more  sure  and  imperishable 
fruit,  than  in  the  garden  ground  of  education.  De^ 
mocracy,  socialism,  single  tax,  the  referendum,  and 


a  score  of  other  devices  for  better  government 
have  their  adherents  and  advocates.  And  we 
should  all  do  well  to  form  unbiased  judgments  on 
these  subjects,  and  heartily  espouse  whatever  so' 
cial  or  political  reform  seems  to  us  best.  For  widely 
as  they  differ  in  the  means  they  propose  to  apply  to 
flagrant  ills,  they  are  alike  in  the  beneficence  of 
their  aimts,  and  in  their  effort  to  secure  justice  from 
the  unjust  and  and  to  impose  honesty  upon  the 
knave.  But  education  is  more  radical;  it  would  im^ 
plant  justice  in  every  heart,  and  establish  ideals 
of  decency  and  fair  play  in  every  growing  Hfe. 

I  may  very  well,  therefore,  offer  you  my  con- 
gratulations that  you  are  to  be  engaged  in  a  pro- 
fession \vhich  is  at  once  so  dependent  upon  radi- 
ant ideals  and  of  such  immense  practical  impor- 
tance. Education,  as  I  have  said,  is  not  only  one 
of  the  finest,  but  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  arts; 
it  is  indeed  the  mother  art,  the  alma  mater  of  genius, 
the  preceptress  of  intelligence,  the  patient  and  un- 
wearied foster  parent  of  life.  We  are  children  ot 
a  cosmic  matriarchy,  sprung  from  the  conscious 


seed  of  time,  formed  in  the  teeming  womb  of 
space,  quickened  by  the  mysterious  energy,— the 
spirit  which  makes  all  things  one. 

Our  belief  in  a  divine  paternity  has  the  sanction 
of  immemorial  tradition,  but  our  feeling  toward 
the  maternity  of  nature  is  deeper  and  more  in^ 
stinctive  still.  Man  is  thrice  born  of  woman;  he 
is  born  a  living  spirit  when  he  is  first  laid  in  his 
holy  mother's  arms;  he  is  born  a  questing  intelli^ 
gence,  when  at  her  comfortable  knees  he  first  be^ 
gins  to  Hsp  his  mother  tongue;  and  he  is  born  at 
last  to  full  physical  manhood  as  the  accepted  lover 
of  his  worshipped  maid.  By  the  will  of  woman  he 
is  brought  forth  from  eternal  mystery;  by  the  wis" 
dom  of womanhe  is  given  understanding;through 
the  mating  charm  of  woman  he  is  made  partaker 
in  the  destiny  of  his  race.  It  is  wrong  to  speak  of 
children  as  little  animals,  as  we  often  do,— un^ 
thinking  and  uncaring;  they  are  more  spirit  than 
anything  else,  and  their  growth  can  only  be  en" 
trusted  safely  to  the  spiritual  foresight  which 
mothers  the  race.  From  Solomon  to  Spencer  men 

8 


have  written  and  discoursed  on  the  science  of 
education;  and  myriads  of  brave  strong  men  and 
women  have  given  devoted  lives  for  its  fruitful 
maintenance,  and  for  enlarging  and  perfecting  its 
scope.  For  education  to  be  adequate  must  be 
high  and  broad  as  well  as  deep;  it  must  be  lighted 
by  inspiration,  enriched  by  all  the  learning  of  ex' 
perience,  and  fructified  with  all  the  lore  of  in^ 
herited  skill.  The  lore  of  the  creative  arts  and 
constructive  sciences  must  be  imparted  by  men, 
since  it  is  in  these  domains  that  men  have  been 
supreme.  But  v^hile  the  w^ork  of  a  man  can  only 
be  learned  from  a  man,  to  the  deeper  ranges  of 
being,  the  sources  of  spirit,  the  springs  of  power, 
it  is  seldom  permitted  to  man  s  rude  reason  to 
penetrate.  These  profound  deeps  of  life,  it  would 
seem,  must  be  forever  in  the  maternal  care  of 
women.  Man,  the  restless  discoverer,  inventor, 
innovator,  compeller,  is  himself  with  all  his  am- 
bitions sprung  from  a  nature  still  profounder 
than  his  own,  which  broods  upon  the  eternal 
things,  and  to  whose  calm  soul  all  man  s  vaunted 


knowledge  and  boasted  deeds  are  but  as  dust 
upon  the  wind  if  they  have  not  the  saving  in- 
spiriting quaHty  of  love.  We  may  know,  but 
she  understands;  we  may  achieve  and  overcome, 
but  she  alone  can  teach  us  to  rejoice.  The  reins 
of  night  and  day  are  in  her  hands,  and  she  will 
loose  the  bands  of  Orion  in  her  ow^n  good  time. 
This  is  the  mystery  of  life,  the  impassable  enigma. 
You  see  I  do  not  speak  to  you  according  to  fash' 
ion  nor  tradition,  but  out  of  a  fearless  conviction, 
as  if  I  were  trying  to  write  for  you  a  poem  w^orthy 
of  the  occasion,  worthy  of  your  Moonshine 
School,  worthy  of  its  founder.  And  poetry,  ^we 
know,  is  sceptical  of  argument  and  ^vill  not  rely 
upon  logic  alone.  As  a  wise  little  sister  once  warm- 
ly exclaimed,  "There  are  greater  things  than 
truth."  I  have  forgotten  what  called  forth  the  re- 
mark. I  suppose  she  had  been  hearing  some  over- 
glorification  of  the  modern  scientific  spirit — some 
vaunting  of  our  mannish  idol.  And  this  daring 
Emersonian  phrase  was  the  woman's  instinctive 
claim  for  the  transcendent  wisdom  of  the  soul 


lO 


and  its  beneficent  uses  of  truth.  The  unquencha- 
ble spiritjbent  on  happiness,  on  freedom,  on  ideals, 
which  could  utter  that  thought  and  in  an  instant 
strike  do^vn  the  demi-god  of  intellectual  pride, 
demohshing  our  pretensions  in  a  breath,  is  itself 
manifestation  of  a  greater  thing  than  mere  truth. 
The  faithful  devotion  ^vhich  day  by  day  and  year 
after  year,  through  toil,  discouragement  and  dis- 
may, brings  its  undefeated  dreams  to  pass  in  works 
of  helpfulness  and  beauty,  is  a  greater  thing  than 
mere  truth. 

Yet  see  how,  "When  half-gods  go,  the  gods 
arrive!"  In  these  admissions  we  only  pass  to  a 
wider  view,  a  larger  understanding  of  the  quaUty 
and  significance  of  truth.  For  the  unitrinian,  truth 
is  hardly  truth  unless  it  has  soul  and  body,  unless 
it  partakes  of  spirituality  on  the  one  hand  and  re- 
ality on  the  other.  There  are  greater  things  than 
the  conception  of  truth  divorced  from  good  and 
beauty;  there  is  nothing  greater  than  the  truth 
that  is  aUied  to  its  spiritual  origin  and  its  physi- 
cal fulfillment;  for  that  utmost  larger  truth  is 


II 


nothing  less  than  theuniversal  thought,  the  Logos, 
which  must  necessarily  include  not  only  infinite 
knowledge,  but  imperishable  beauty  and  inex' 
haustible  goodness  in  its  triune  perfection,— just 
as  our  partial  knowledge  is  allied  to  sensation  and 
emotion,— all  fleeting  and  imperfect,  yet  forever 
inseparable.  Truth  is  the  second  person  of  a  sa^ 
cred  trinity;  wherever  voluntary  good  awakes  6? 
sensible  loveliness  is  found,  there  is  truth  between 
them, — and  there  only.  How  monstrous  and 
blind  would  all  the  arts  and  activities  of  men  be^ 
come,  w^ithout  the  beneficent  impulses  of  the  soul, 
and  the  clear  guidance  of  knowledge  and  reason! 
How^  sterile  were  the  researches  of  science,  ^vith 
no  attachment  to  the  purposes  and  needs  of  life! 
How  blighted  and  vain  those  religious  exalta" 
tions  which  shut  themselves  away  from  the  light 
of  science,  denying  the  ministrations  of  beauty 
and  the  sanctity  of  nature!  All  these  are  broken 
and  false  ideals  of  art,  of  science,  of  reUgion.  But 
religion  and  science  and  art  can  never  be  really 
separable  in  their  aims;  they  are  the  methods  in 


12 


which  a  triune  World^self  chooses  to  realize  its 
benign  ideals;  through  them  we  share  in  accom^ 
pUshing  divine  purposes;  through  them  our  dark' 
Ung  lives  are  illumined,  and  in  their  practice  we 
ourselves  are  refreshed  upon  the  doubtful  way. 
In  your  art,  in  your  profession,  it  is  with  life 
and  nothing  less  that  you  have  to  deal;  it  is  Hfe 
that  you  are  called  upon  to  foster  and  to  mould. 
You  are  not  mere  teachers  of  theory,  you  are  not 
mere  trainers  in  technical  accomplishments.  You 
are,  and  you  are  to  be,  practitioners  in  the  great 
art  of  human  culture.  Life  is  the  precious  me^ 
dium  committed  to  your  hands,  which  you  are 
to  impress  -with  your  ideals,  and  form  for  its 
destinies  by  your  influence  for  better  or  worse. 
And  this  process  of  transforming  ideals  into  act" 
ualities,  of  bringing  aspiration  to  its  finest  flower 
and  fruition,  is  one  of  the  greater  things, — an 
inspiration  of  the  Over-truth  in  whose  light  alone 
can  life  be  worthily  lived.  I  need  hardly  remind 
you  that  only  those  who  have  sought  truth  dili" 
gently  with  a  devoted  heart  and  an  eager  mind; 

13 


who  have  made  it  their  honored  counsellor  and 
their  inalienable  friend;  who  have  been  willing 
for  its  sake  to  front  the  beleaguering  hordes  of 
doubt,  discouragement,  poverty,  and  unsuccess; 
who  have  seen  it  threatened  at  every  turn  by 
malevolence,  chicanery,  selfishness  and  fear;  who 
have  learned  what  faith  and  persistence  are 
needed  before  it  can  prevail,  (yet  how  radiantly 
and  supremely  it  does  prevail),  only  they  can  have 
any  just  conception  of  what  must  be  added  to 
truth  to  make  still  greater  things. 

As  I  think  of  the  teacher  s  office  and  what 
constitutes  a  great  teacher  s  fitness  for  that  high 
vocation,  the  pre-eminent  requisites  seem  to  be,in' 
sight,  courage,  sincerity,  knowledge,  enthusiasm, 
all  in  an  abounding  degree,  and  above  all  an  unfail' 
ing  and  unselfish  devotion.  Great  insight,  to  per" 
ceive  the  student's  needs;  great  courage  and  sin- 
cerity  to  arraign  faults  and  convince  of  dangers 
at  any  risk ;  great  knowledge  to  be  able  to  sub" 
stitute  better  ideals  and  habits  for  worse,  to  set 
wrongs  right,  and  to  supply  the  needed  welcome 

14 


and  nurture  for  growth;  and  a  great,  generous 
loving  care  for  the  plight  of  all  necessitous  beings 
in  their  baffling  struggle  toward  perfection.  For, 
as  Herbert  Spencer  says,  "Education  is  all  that  we 
do  for  ourselves  and  all  that  others  do  for  us  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  us  nearer  the  perfection 
of  our  nature."  These  exceptional  helps,  I  know, 
you  have  found  in  the  friend  and  leader  with 
whom  you  have  here  been  following  this  most 
liberal  education. 

Do  not  for  a  moment  allowyourselves  to  fancy 
that  because  you  are  not  a  multitude,  your  school 
is  small.  For  I  tell  you  there  is  none  greater— none 
greater  in  its  destiny  and  in  its  service  to  the 
world.  That  inspired  old  man,  Pestalo2;2;i,  with 
the  simple  faith  of  his  childlike  heart,  was  no  less 
great  because  all  his  dreams  and  plans  came  to 
naught  in  his  own  day.  His  life  seemed  a  series 
of  failures,  and  yet  how  splendid  a  success !  By 
reason  of  his  loving  spirit  alone,  with  neither 
formulated  system  nor  theory,he  became  thefairy 
godfather  of  modern  education,  the  spiritual  good 

b  15 


genius  and  forerunner  of  those  who  were  to  sys' 
temati2;e  and  apply  the  spirit  of  his  art.  When 
Froebel  gave  up  a  Hvelihood  in  order  to  devote 
himself  to  his  ideal— to  put  in  practice  the  theory 
of  objective  education,  and  found  only  five  young 
children,  his  sister  s  family,  ready  to  receive  his 
care,  one  would  have  called  that  a  small  school; 
and  yet  how  great  it  was— great  enough  to  in^ 
fluence  all  the  teaching  of  the  world !  So  to-day, 
it  is  not  numbers  that  make  greatness.  Majorities 
may  rule,  but  it  is  always  the  few  who  must  save 
the  world— the  few  to  whom  the  seed  of  truth 
is  revealed;  the  few  that  are  illumined  with  a 
fervent  and  sublime  faith,  whom  no  hindrance 
can  daunt,  no  falsity  defeat ;  the  few  that  are  in- 
domitable and  persistent  to  the  goal.  You  must 
always  believe  in  the  sorcery  of  your  philosophy. 
In  place  of  noisy  applause,  have  you  not  the  music 
of  gladness  ?  In  place  of  crowded  darkness,  have 
you  not  light?  In  place  of  decay,  have  you  not 
growth  ?  In  place  of  dreariness  and  uncertainty, 
have  you  not  a  charmed  life? 

i6 


I  take  it  as  a  glad  omen  that  you  convene  in 
Moonshine,  and  in  the  mountains.  It  is  in  moon^ 
shine  that  nature  works  her  most  magic  trans- 
formations and  lays  her  wonder -breeding  spell 
upon  the  earth.  It  is  in  the  mountains,  lofty,  se- 
rene, and  remote,  that  freedom  has  been  nourished 
and  religions  have  been  born.  A  stranger  might 
see  here  only  a  company  of  intelligent  students 
come  together  for  the  practice  of  new  achieve- 
ments and  to  listen  to  the  discourse  of  an  ac- 
compUshed  woman.  But  to  me  it  is  like  Plato's 
academe,  this  atmosphere  to  which  we  have  been 
admitted.  I  see  that  the  Modern  Spirit,  which 
dissects  all  doctrines  and  holds  fast  only  that 
which  can  prove  itself  true  and  desirable  and 
comely,— which  is  forever  questing,  forever  ac- 
complishing, forever  growing,— has  here  enun- 
ciated its  latest  revelation.  Rousseau  s  plea  for 
freedom,  Pestalo2,2;rs  impassioned  love  of  his  fel- 
low beings,  FroebeFs  sagacious  comprehension  of 
nature's  laws,  Delsarte's  profound  and  clarifying 
discovery,  here  begin  to  find  their  complete  ful- 

17 


filment  and  utility.  And  the  founder  of  your 
school,  like  her  great  predecessors  in  the  science 
and  art  of  education,  has  only  come  to  this  pre^ 
cious  victory  for  her  ideals  after  years  of  unre- 
mitting effort  and  discouragement,  such  as  only 
those  \vho  are  possessed  by  a  sublime  ideal  can 
sustain.  I  need  not  rehearse  the  laborious  study, 
the  research,  the  sifting  of  one  philosophy  after 
another,  the  questioning,  the  weighing,  the  pon- 
dering, the  teachers  sought  and  listened  to,  the 
books  read,  the  theories  tested  in  costly  practice, — 
all  to  be  gone  through  with  boundless  enthusiasm 
and  severely  critical  thought,  before  your  school 
could  be  established.  Neither  you  nor  I,  I  am  sure, 
can  measure  the  lonely  travail  of  spirit,  the  stress 
of  body,  and  strain  of  mind,  which  must  have 
been  encountered  on  this  difficult  and  glorious 
way.  This  teaching  which  seems  so  clear,  so  in- 
spiring, so  helpful,  so  conclusive,  adequate  and 
abounding,  and  which  we  are  privileged  to  take 
so  easily  in  such  beautiful  surroundings,  was  not 
so  easily  come  by.  A  great  life  has  been  given  to 

i8 


secure  it,— yes,  more  than  one,— and  we  were  dull 
indeed  not  to  feel  an  obligation  to  carry  our  share 
of  it  worthily,  with  the  bearing  of  Chaucer  s  Ox' 
ford  student,  of  whom  he  wrote, 
"And  gladly  would  he  learn  and  gladly  teach." 
Indeed  your  teaching  calls  for  a  scrupulous 
adherence  to  the  finest  code  of  ethics.  Unitri' 
nianism  has  truly  its  religious  note,  as  well  as  its 
philosophic  and  artistic.  It  appeals  to  the  moral 
or  emotional  side  of  human  nature,  quite  as  much 
as  to  the  intellectual  and  physical,  for  its  sanction. 
The  spiritual  life  comes  quite  as  much  within  its 
province,  as  the  other  two.  It  conceives  all  three 
to  be  of  equal  importance,  and  their  co-equal  cul' 
ture  to  be  imperative  for  the  education  of  the  in- 
dividual.  And  it  concedes  and  inculcates  the  pri- 
macy of  the  spirit  in  all  things,  in  conduct,  in 
growth,  in  art.  It  perceives  that  there  can  be  no 
successful  issue  in  the  world  of  knowledge  and 
speculation,  nor  in  the  world  of  art  and  affairs, 
without  the  radiant  leadership  of  the  soul;  and 
that  any  philosophy,  any  civili2;ation,  which  is 

b2  19 


careless  of  spiritual  things,  is  doomed  to  frustra^ 
tion  and  failure.  And  the  great  proof  of  its  val^ 
idity  is  this,  that  it  comes  to  us  from  nature,  and 
is  not  a  closed  system  contrived  by  a  single  mind. 
It  is  a  happy  discovery,  not  a  clever  invention. 
With  its  burden  of  spirituality,  its  passion  for 
truth,  its  unashamed  love  of  all  lovely  things,  it 
is  not  come  to  destroy  old  systems,  but  to  fulfill 
them.  It  would  not  subvert  religion;  its  only  hope 
is  to  strengthen  man  s  heart.  It  would  not  con- 
flict with  science  and  philosophy;  it  would  only 
make  them  more  inspired  and  more  human.  It 
would  not  discount  any  of  the  arts  of  life;  it 
would  only  lend  them  new  meaning  and  vitality. 
And  because  it  is  not  arbitrary  and  finite,  but 
plastic  and  natural,  it  is  applicable  to  the  needs 
of  every  personality.  It  does  not  furnish  patterns, 
it  only  upholds  standards;  so  that,  while  it  de- 
mands of  us  the  utmost  culture,  it  permits  the 
utmost  variety  of  character.  It  does  not  ask  us 
to  conform  to  any  type, — neither  in  our  creeds, 
our  convictions,  nor  our  pursuits.  It  only  asks  us 


?o 


to  be  our  best  selves,  to  realizie  our  finest  ideals, 
to  make  the  utmost  use  of  all  our  powers.  We 
cannot  be  good  unitrinians,  unless  we  learn  to  be 
glad^hearted;  for  joyousness  is  the  native  air  of 
the  soul.  We  cannot  be  true  unitrinians,  unless 
we  learn  to  cultivate  an  eager  and  appreciative 
intelligence;  for  knowledge  is  the  very  food  of 
the  mind.  We  cannot  be  comely  unitrinians  at 
all,  unless  we  develop  our  bodies  in  the  freedom 
and  health  and  grace  which  they  are  so  capable 
of  enjoying  and  utili2;ing;  for  happy  achievement 
is  the  end  of  life,  as  happy  love  is  its  beginning, 
and  happy  learning  its  means  of  growth. 

And  this  brings  us  more  specifically  to  con^ 
sider  the  tasks  v/hich  are  to  be  yours.  Your  par- 
ticular field  of  teaching  is  the  training  of  the 
growing  body  into  harmony  with  the  growing 
mind  and  spirit.  This  is  the  medium  through 
which  you  are  to  influence  personality  and  mould 
character.  You  are  to  reach  to  the  inmost  reces- 
ses of  moral  being,  where  the  emotions  and  the 
will  reside— to  arouse,  to  encourage,  to  strengthen 


21 


human  nature  at  its  very  source,  and  by  offering 
it  beautiful  things  to  think  about,  to  do,  and  say, 
educe  from  it  beneficent  habits  of  gracious  and 
graceful  activity;  and  by  freeing  the  natural  ave^ 
nues  of  expression,  motion  and  speech,  you  Avill 
stimulate  the  mind  to  clarify  and  express  what^ 
ever  thought  and  reflection  life  may  have  engen^ 
dered  there. 

In  this,  your  making  of  personality,  you  will 
use  chiefly  the  three  great  rhythmic  arts  of  music, 
poetry  and  dancing.  Through  the  rhythmic  spell 
of  music,  the  most  primitive,  potent  and  univer^ 
sally  appreciated  of  all  the  fine  arts,  you  ^vill  lay 
a  charm  upon  the  wilHng  spirit  and  awaken  the 
most  primal  and  most  puissant  instincts  of  capa" 
bility.  Through  the  rhythmic  spell  of  poetry  you 
will  bring  to  the  wilUng  intelligence  all  "the  best 
that  has  been  thought  and  said  in  the  world," 
(to  repeat  Matthew  Arnold's  happy  phrase,)  be^ 
cause  in  no  other  way  can  sublimated  truth  be 
conveyed.  The  poetry  of  the  world  contains  the 
wisdom  of  the  world;  it  is  only  in  forms  of  po' 


22 


etry  that  wisdom  receives  its  most  perfect  state^ 
ment,  and  becomes  food  not  only  for  the  brood' 
ing  mind,  but  for  the  deeper  sub-conscious  intu- 
ition as  well.  The  full  value  of  poetry  does  not 
lie  in  the  charming  magic  of  its  cadences,  nor  in 
the  unequivocal  truth  it  embodies,  nor  even  in 
its  enraptured  and  orphic  mode  of  speech,  but 
in  the  fact  that  it  blends  all  these  characteristics 
together  as  the  only  language  adequate  to  serve 
the  threefold  requirements  of  man  s  nature.  All 
the  sublime  consolations  of  reHgion  have  come 
to  us  out  of  the  ancient  heart  of  the  eternal  in 
forms  of  poetry;  and  into  forms  of  poetry  must 
all  the  news  of  science  and  philosophy  be  trans- 
muted again  to  serve  the  fullest  purposes  of  life. 
And  since  poetry  is  a  spoken  art  and  depends  for 
its  ultimate  beauty  on  the  musical  tones  of  the 
voice,  your  harmoni2;ing  training  will  not  over- 
look the  importance  of  good  speech  in  your  ideal 
curriculum.  Finally,  through  the  rhythmic  spell 
of  the  dance  and  interpretive  motion,  you  will 
free  and  strengthen,  you  will  co-ordinate  and 


harmonizie,  you  will  beautify  and  make  symmet- 
rical  the  bodies  and  their  conduct  committed  to 
your  charge.  In  the  ardor  of  your  noble  calling, 
so  impersonal  and  universal  in  its  aims,  you  will 
spread  the  lyrical  cry, 
"No  glory  is  too  splendid 

To  house  this  soul  of  mine, 

No  tenement  too  lowly 

To  serve  it  for  a  shrine." 

In  all  these  arts  which  are  to  be  properly  yours, 
you  see,  you  will  be  dealing  with  the  greater 
things.  In  the  effort  to  forward  the  development 
of  symmetrical  human  personalities,  the  first  great 
requisite  is  freedom — freedomforthehumanbody, 
as  well  as  for  the  spirit  and  mind,  for  the  salva^ 
tion  of  the  ^vhole  being  in  sanity  and  joy.  For 
this  cause  you  must  forever  discard,  abandon, 
discredit  and  utterly  condemn  all  artificial  restric 
tions  ^vhich  hinder  personal  freedom  and  mar 
personal  perfection,  ^vhether  they  be  creeds  or 
corsets,  shibboleths  or  shoes,  collars  or  convene 
tions.  Mind  and  spirit  and  muscle  grow  by  use — 

24 


grow  ill  by  ill  use,  and  grow  well  by  good  use- 
but  not  by  disuse.  Our  creeds  and  our  shoes  must 
be  our  own,  fitted  to  our  own  measure,  suited  to 
our  ow^n  need,  large  enough  to  allow  free  play, 
strong  enough  to  withstand  the  roughness  of  the 
journey,  but  not  cramped  after  grotesque  pre- 
scribed inhuman  pattern,  nor  accepted  at  any  ex- 
traneous bidding.  Yet  for  my  souPs  good,  I  would 
rather  say  my  prayers  to  a  painted  idol  than  wear 
a  pinching  shoe.  Sanguinary  wars  have  been 
waged,  nations  have  been  disrupted,  men  have 
perished  at  the  stake,  for  a  good  called  freedom 
of  conscience.  Your  fight  will  be  for  freedom  of 
the  body— not  only  freedom  to  breathe  and  move, 
but  freedom  to  obey  the  behests  of  its  own  soul 
before  all  others.  It  is  conceded  well  to  have  a 
sensitive  conscience  and  a  ready  understanding. 
To  possess  all  the  faculties  of  an  uninjured,  cul- 
tivated and  inspired  physique,  is  a  no  less  vital 
good,  no  less  to  be  desired. 

Edward  Carpenter,  the  modern  English  seer, 
says  "  I  am  the  prophet  of  hitherto  unuttered  joy ! 

^5 


All  our  faculties,  all  our  instincts,  are  so  much  raw 
material  to  aid  the  life  of  the  soul.  The  body  is 
the  root  of  the  soul.  To  over-emphasi2;e  the  body 
is  to  hide  the  soul;  to  despise  the  body  as  the 
ascetic,  is  as  stupid  and  as  disastrous  as  to  despise 
the  soul ;  to  despise  the  soul  is  to  miss  the  heights 
and  subtleties  and  sweetnesses  of  all  the  wonder" 
ful  functions  of  the  body.  The  soul  invading, 
makes  the  body  its  temple.  Beware,  lest  thou 
make  of  it  thy  prison  and  thy  grave,  instead  of 
thy  winged  abode  and  palace  of  joy.'' 

As  ministers  of  that  fine  culture,  remember 
Whitman  s  magnificent  line,  "You  are  the  gates 
of  the  body,  and  you  are  the  gates  of  the  soul."*' 

You  will  often  be  discouraged  in  your  task;  for 
with  all  the  mystic  wisdom  of  which  humanity 
is  capable — the  insight,  the  selfsacrifice,  the  no" 
bility — there  are  still  abysms  of  unreason  from 
which  at  times  it  seems  averse  to  stir.  Yet  do 
not  argue  overmuch.  Sow  the  seed,  and  experi" 
ence  will  plow  it  in.  Sun  it  with  fair  example,  and 
time  will  bring  it  to  fruitage.  Do  all  you  can  and 

a6 


let  God  do  the  rest.  He  has  ways  unknown  to 
rhetoric  of  bringing  the  soul  to  reason.  And  the 
secret  of  art's  success  is,  that  it  passes  the  guards 
of  prejudice  unchallenged,  and  occupies  the  very- 
citadel  of  the  soul,  before  we  are  aware. 

How  should  we  not  persist,  and  be  confident 
and  glad,  unterrori2;ed  by  life?  We  have  been 
made  possessors  of  a  great  doctrine,  disciples  of 
a  great  school  of  thought,  which  has  its  stated 
beginnings  in  this  simple,  yet  beautiful  house,  in 
the  inspiring  loveliness  of  these  ancient  hills.  The 
message  is  prepared;  the  door  is  open;  the  world 
is  below.  Let  us  not  be  laggard  of  foot,  nor  weak 
of  heart,  but  of  a  good  courage,  as  befits  bearers 
of  an  untarnished  gospel;  for  the  benign  Power 
which  brings  such  revelations  to  man  in  their 
due  season,  will  not  fail  us  upon  the  road.  Our 
three  sided  lantern  will  be  sufficient  for  us  through 
the  forest  and  the  night,  until  at  last  appear  the 
kindling  shafts  of  dawn  bathing  the  lonely  peaks 
in  victorious  rose  and  blue  and  gold,— the  light 
of  the  All-beautiful,  the  All-wise,  the  All-good. 

'  27 


Doubt  not  the  day  is  at  hand.  The  stars  in  their 
rhythmic  courses  will  be  on  your  side;  the  wav- 
ing grasses  of  the  fields  will  give  you  help;  and 
the  wheeling  birds  of  the  air  will  companion  you. 
You  shall  arise  with  the  incense  of  morning  to 
serve  life  every  day  anew,  and  with  the  going 
down  of  the  sun  you  shall  return  to  glad  reflec- 
tion and  repose,— the  spirit  to  its  joy,  the  mind 
to  its  dreams,  the  pulse  to  its  peace,— the  un- 
grudging being  to  the  unhasting  eternal. 

Moonshine, 

I  September,  1911. 


Two  hundred  and  fifty  copies 
of  this  address  have  been  printed 
for  the  Author  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Frederic  W.  Goudy,  at 
The  Tabard  Press,  New  York, 
October,  191 1. 


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